Pathways to success - Sweden

The Swedish version of Pathways to Success Project will be starting up during 2015. Erik Olsson is the project-leader and he will work together with Alireza Behtoui.

The international ELITES, Pathways to Success research group studies the (upcoming) elites in different national and international projects. In the different national Pathways to Success projects we study success trajectories and intergenerational social mobility among - mostly still invisible - upcoming elite. Graduates who are now working in a professional position or people who successfully started their own business. Compared to their parents they usually made a huge intergenerational mobility leap. We are interested in their views on success and explanations of their own success. With Pathways to Success we hope to further unravel, both for academic and policy purposes, mechanisms that shape and define success.  

ELITES - Pathways to Success

European cities are becoming increasingly diverse. The aim of the ELITES, Pathways to Success projects is to explore today’s new (upcoming) elite in Europe’s large cities: successful entrepreneurs, people working in high-skilled jobs and in leadership positions. We are particularly interested in those who by family origin were not yet part of the elite, either because of their working class background or because their parents were immigrants. We will document their pathways to success and learn about how they influence and reshape today’s society.

The international ELITES, Pathways to Success research group studies the (upcoming) elites in different national and international projects. In the different national Pathways to Success projects we study success trajectories and intergenerational social mobility among - mostly still invisible - upcoming elite. Graduates who are now working in a professional position or people who successfully started their own business. Compared to their parents they usually made a huge intergenerational mobility leap. We are interested in their views on success and explanations of their own success. With Pathways to Success we hope to further unravel, both for academic and policy purposes, mechanisms that shape and define success.  

In the international ELITES Project we study an even more successful group: those already holding an elite position. We compare members of this more visible elite in Sweden, Germany, France and The Netherlands. Through the international comparison we will shed light on whether countries offer different opportunities for new elite, and whether the established elite is equally receptive to the new elite members in different countries. We will compare people of the business elite, the elite in the public sector and in the law sector across countries.

Subcategories

  • Researchers' pages

    Erik Olsson is Professor of International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Stockholm University where he is responsible for the Migration Cluster and the CEIFO programme at the Department of Social Anthropology. His research is mainly devoted to transnational migration and diaspora. Olsson is the project-leader the Swedish version of Pathways to Success (starting up during 2015) which is a mixed method approach to account for the career pathways and upward mobility of descendants of migrants. See more at http://www.socant.su.se/english/research/our-researchers/erik-olsson.